Friday, March 25, 2011

This week's top stories

Go here for the TortsProf Blog's list of this week's top stories and here for the Abnormal Use blog's "Friday links." In addition, go here and scroll down for my own selection of top news stories.
Here is a short trivia bit from this weeks news. As some of you know, actress Elizabeth Taylor passed away this week. She had a very indirect connection with tort law. In 1975, she had a brief but celebrated close personal relationship with a guy called Henry Wynberg. The relationship generated many news articles and Wynberg sued the National Enquirer for one of them claiming defamation. The Enquirer replied by claiming that Wynberg’s reputation was so bad to begin with that nothing said in the article could have made it any worse. In Wynberg v. National Enquirer, Inc., 564 F.Supp. 924 (C.D.Cal. 1982), the court sided with The Enquirer developing what has come to be known as the “libel proof” defense. Although this may not have been the first case in which the argument was discussed, I believe it is the first one in which a court explains it in detail and provides the analysis to follow to determine if a plaintiff should be considered libel proof.